Alexei Kudrin spoke about the trap in which Russia finds itself

Russia is trapped, which hinders modernization, said the Chairman of the accounts chamber of the Russian Federation Alexey Kudrin, speaking at the final debate of the all-Russian civil forum. According to Kudrin, the country lacks the necessary for the development of institutions and the need to understand the government, but to build such institutions fails.

Kudrin outlined the turning point was Russia. Modernization, according to him, in any case will have to happen, but it can happen, or planned, by the decision of the authorities, either spontaneously due to demands from below. The last happened in the early 1990s, recalled Kudrin: change, which appeared in Russia, the free market and democracy have occurred because of requirements of the population. However, the price of chaotic modernization appeared to be high: the country’s disintegration, the fall in GDP in two times. “Spontaneous, chaotic modernization is very expensive,” warned Kudrin.

If modernization does not happen at all, after some time, the standard of living will fall sharply, and the state will become even more difficult to control such a huge territory, he said. Kudrin recalled that in the last ten years, the annual growth of the Russian economy was only 1%. “Not counting the revolutions, wars and the collapse of the USSR, this is the longest period of stagnation for the last time,” said Chairman of the accounting chamber.

Alexei Kudrin expressed hope that the government will initiate changes in the country and the system will react to the problem, because economic growth and competitiveness — General interest. According to him, to ensure the growth, Russia needs to conquer international markets with new goods, and yet our country essentially has nothing to offer. This year the level of exports will decline, and perhaps further, the decline will continue, warned Kudrin.

Only a few countries out of similar situations without outside help, warned Kudrin. Many developed countries carry out modernization helped by external forces — for example, South Korea and Japan have been modernized thanks to the United States.

According to Alexei Kudrin, to encourage the authorities to the modernization should be a society that thanks to new technologies gets new features build horizontal linkages.